CONNECT

A PSA for my fellow Gay men, and perhaps anyone else in the LGBTQ community.

I’m gonna start this by laying out a little scenario:

Let’s say you’re a Gay man who primarily has non-LGBTQ (a.k.a. cisgender-heterosexual or “straight”) men as friends (which you likely applaud yourself for, daily…but that’s another issue). Y’all are just casually hanging out and they’re all talking about sex. They’re exchanging stories of their recent “conquests,” and are having an absolute ki. And then, you try to chime about your last sexual experience, in the exact same way that they just did.

…but you feel the good vibes noticeably drop. It gets awkward, and you immediately get the hint that you should back off from your story. You deflate, retreat into your own head (where you’ll likely quietly replay that moment in a cringeworthy loop), and let them take back over the conversation.

This is likely not an unfamiliar experience for Gay men who hang around folks who are non-LGBTQ. And many people’s go-to response may be to just roll with it and not see it as a big deal. But let’s be clear about one thing: [Read more…]

This is actually something that, after years of explaining, I’ve grown entirely bored with. However, this is a topic that comes up over and over again. So I want to give it a place on my blog for posterity.

RE: “I love Gay people. I just disagree with their lifestyle.”

First of all, falsely characterizing my sexual identity as a “lifestyle” that can be disagreed with is trash from the outset. Who I’m sexually and romantically attracted to is not a “lifestyle.” It’s simply who I’m sexually and romantically attracted to. Is there a such thing as a (Black) Gay culture and community? Absolutely, but Black Gay and Queer folks aren’t synonymous with that. Similarly to Black people, as a whole, Gay/Queer/SGL folks are not a monolith. Attraction to the same sex isn’t always synonymous with whatever your stereotypical ideas of Queerness are.

In the wake of several instances of Black Gay/Queer men and boys who losing their lives due to interpersonal and systemic violence, I decided to do a 3-part series going over a couple of particular cases that have stuck out to me, the systemic factors that led to them taking place, and the overall response to them. I’ll start off with one of the most recent cases (as of this piece being written).

[Trigger/Content Warning for anti-LGBTQ violence/murder]

On November 2, 2017, a young Black Gay teen named Giovanni Melton was murdered by his own father. This happened because Giovanni’s father “disagreed” with his sexual identity and couldn’t handle having a Gay son. There are so many layers to this that it’s hard know where to begin. And I don’t believe I’ll even be able to touch on every aspect. But one central takeaway from this whole situation: Black Gay/LGBTQ bodies are undervalued and left behind. Even in this era of so-called “Intersectionality.”

First, I believe that the widespread notion that LGBTQ identities are a simply some idea that be “disagreed” with heavily contributes to this. All of the propaganda in church of “hate the sin, love the sinner.” The posts on social media casually asking baiting questions like “what would you do if this was your son?” The way people relentlessly debase men who do anything that doesn’t fall in line with this colonized idea of masculinity. Making AIDS “jokes” at the expense of Gay/Queer men. All of these things are factors, and all of the people who contribute are complicit. [Read more…]

Continuing the “Gay shit” for Pride 2017, I thought this would be a good time to revisit a rant I’ve made before. Of course, said rant, in its original form, is currently unavailable, because fuck Twitter. So, might as well recreate it in blog form. I wanna take this time to break down why “Love Is Love” is a terrible way to advocate for LGBTQ people. Particularly, since this recently popped up on my Facebook news feed:

“In June we celebrate love.” …tuh

As with most any other trendy form of activism, “Love is Love” seems innocent enough on its face. It’s another form of pushing the message of equality for LGBTQ people…to advocate that we’re “just like” the heteros.

It’s time to gently get to the bottom of all this Gay patriarchy (hehe…bottom).

So, I’ve been at this thot life for over a decade, now. And as someone who’s officially a fossil in “Gay Years” (i.e. 30 years old), I’ve amassed a good, collective idea of how men in “the scene” tend to carry out sexuality.

As anyone who’s followed my work knows, I’m all about relating everyday, “minor” shit to the systems that directly contribute to keeping folks oppressed. So, I wanna touch on the gender binary & patriarchy and how they’re internalized among Gay/Queer/SGL men.

Many of us homos are familiar with this persistent need to designate “The Man” and “The Woman” in any kind of pairing between two people of the same gender. With regards to men, the Bottom (the party who engages in the receptive position during intercourse) is considered “The Woman.” The Top (the party who engages in the penetrative position) is considered “The Man.” This patriarchal mentality has materialized itself in many different ways that are impossible to cover in one piece, by one person. But I’m gonna go over just some of the ways this tends to affect us sexually, since, again, I’ve got well over a decade of experience in that area. [Read more…]